ABSTRACT
Curriculum history as an area of scholarly study proves rather difficult to delineate. The best description seems to suggest that it is as well-defined as the field of curriculum, somewhat of a “cacophony of voices,” as William Pinar characterized the field. Perhaps considered faint praise, another way to describe curriculum history’s current state of the field is to suggest that this area offers many possibilities, multiplicities, and opportunities for research. Framed by criticisms of the curriculum field of the 1960s and 1970s, and by accusations of its atheoretical and ahistorical nature, curriculum historians have struggled to legitimize themselves, often seeking that legitimation from the recognized disciplinary research practices of historians of education. Yet curriculum history, most fortunately, has not fallen prey to crystalized research traditions and orthodoxies. Murray Nelson, former president of the Society for the Study of Curriculum History, while bemoaning the insular nature of the small group of scholars who engage in curriculum history, was quick to note that the area is “hardly closed to outsiders” (Nelson, 1989a, p. 27). Our review of the past 25 years of research confirms curriculum history’s accessibility.
